WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

The Second World War. Six Volumes. Signed, "Winston S. Churchill, 1957," on the half-title page of volume one. First English edition. London: Cassell & Co., 1948-1954. Each volume handsomely bound in full crimson morocco, marbled endpapers, decoratively gilt tooled on inside edges, gilt lettered on spine, all edges gilt.

When Churchill assumed office in 1940, he fully intended on writing a history of the war then beginning. He said several times, "I will leave judgements on this matter to history - but I will be one of the historians."

To get around the rules against using official documents, he took the precaution throughout the war of having a weekly summary of correspondence, minutes, memoranda and other documents compiled and stored at his home for future use. Unknown at the time that the book was published was the fact that Churchill had worked out a deal with the Attlee Labour government that came into office in 1945. Taking into account his enormous prestige, Attlee agreed to allow him - or more precisely his research assistants -- free access to all documents, provided no official secrets were revealed.

Churchill could not discuss Enigma or the planning of the atomic bomb but his personal account of the period between 1940 and 1942, when Britain was fighting almost alone, is unique and invaluable, all the more so because neither Roosevelt, Stalin nor Hitler wrote any first-hand accounts of the war. Contained in custom-designed blue fall-back boxes.

This item is associated with these categories in our inventory:

• World Leaders
• World War II